Best First Hours

Nate's reviews and writings

Some games are unforgettable. After forking over our birthday money at K-Mart, we bounce all the way home in the backseat of the station wagon, wrestle the plastic wrap away from the box, gingerly place the game in the system, and steady our feverishly shaking hands with an anaconda grip on the controller. We don't let go for hours. And when the credits roll, we tear up a little, knowing we'll always cherish that first time through.

And then there are games that are largely forgotten weeks after release. Niche appeal, scathing reviews, or even just lack of hype can doom a game to obscurity and the Target bargain bin. But even these games deserve a second look...sometimes. Every once in a while, a kernel of brilliance can be found within these steaming piles of mediocrity. The purpose of this feature is to sift out some of these conceptual gems and put them under the microscope.

Today's trip takes us all the way back to 2008, when a game called The World Ends With You dared to eschew every gaming convention it could think of, for better or worse. In the "better" column resides one particularly inspired idea, the Level Slider.

Retro revivals are all the rage nowadays. In the era of the
low-budget downloadable games market, everybody's digging into their
past to give a
classic a fresh coat of paint or create a sequel with
old-school flare. The former provides a proven template onto which
shiny new graphics can be applied, while the latter guarantees interest
from lifelong fans who long to experience that same magic like it were
new again.

3D Dot Game Heroes is a retro-styled installment in
Nintendo's famed Legend of Zelda series, albeit one that was developed
by a different company and published for a different company's hardware,
and it would be slapped silly with copyright infringement lawsuits if
the word "Zelda" appeared anywhere in it. From Software, known for its
Armored Core series
and the recent hit Demon's Souls,
doesn't just take a page from Nintendo's book: the book gets Xeroxed from cover
to cover. Almost everything in 3D Dot Game Heroes feels like it was
stolen from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, from the plot to
the controls to the stage designs to the items and everything in
between.

We tend to view knockoffs as inferior, bitter, envious
versions of the genuine article. Does 3D Dot Game Heroes lack the
essence of its explosively-popular inspiration, or does it manage to
work a little magic of its own?

It's rare that we get to combine our love for games with charitable donations, and unheard of that we can feel like a smart shopper while doing both. Such a concoction of impossibility was made real when the Humble Indie Bundle experiment went live on May 4, 2010. For a limited time, five acclaimed indie games (Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, Penumbra Overture, and World of Goo) were offered as a bundle to gamers...at whatever price they were willing to give. For any price you name, you could have access to five games you may or may not love. A sixth game, Samorost 2, was even added to the bunch as extra incentive. You could even split your price between the developers and two partner charities, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play Charity, at whatever fractions you wanted. I gave $7.50 to the developers and $7.50 to the charities myself, contributing to the $1,270,000 in total donations
contributed as of May 15. It's a great cause that also happens to be a great deal.

Having only previously played (or even heard of) the fantastic World of Goo, I decided to go alphabetically and spend an hour with Aquaria first. Aquaria was created by Bit Blot, an independent game company comprised of Alec Holowka and Derek Yu, in 2007. An indie games festival winner known for its atmosphere, Aquaria is an underwater 2D sidescroller with a focus on exploration and puzzle-solving, in the same vein as Metroid.

As I dive into Aquaria for the first time, I wonder if it's true what they say: is it really better down where it's wetter, under the sea?

Some games are unforgettable. After forking over our birthday money at K-Mart, we bounce all the way home in the backseat of the station wagon, wrestle the plastic wrap away from the box, gingerly place the game in the system, and steady our feverishly shaking hands with an anaconda grip on the controller. We don't let go for hours. And when the credits roll, we tear up a little, knowing we'll always cherish that first time through.

And then there are games that are largely forgotten weeks after release. Niche appeal, scathing reviews, or even just lack of hype can doom a game to obscurity and the Target bargain bin. But even these games deserve a second look...sometimes. Every once in a while, a kernel of brilliance can be found within these steaming piles of mediocrity. The purpose of this feature is to sift out some of these conceptual gems and put them under the microscope.

Today we'll take a look at how the Checklist Grids in last generation's Kirby Air Ride add a special something to one of the current generation's biggest innovations: the Achievement.

Picross 3D is the latest brain-teaser game for the Nintendo DS. If you're not familiar with the concept of Picross,
it's a simple puzzle game: a grid of squares is presented, and numbers
next to the rows or columns indicate how many squares in that column or
row should be colored in. As squares are colored in, they clue the
player in on what other squares should be colored in. The end result is
a crude object, like a person or a clock. It's simple enough that it
could be done on graph paper, but Nintendo has made millions of dollars
collecting these puzzles and putting them in videogames, most recently Picross DS a few years ago.

Picross 3D takes the concept in three
dimensions, giving the player a large cube or rectangular prism made up
of blocks. Remove the right blocks and an object appears. The concept
is almost as simple in 3D as it is on graph paper, though it would be
nigh-impossible to do with physical objects. It's well-suited for
videogames, however, where virtual representations can easily be
created.

As someone who enjoys brain-teasers and puzzle games, I have a feeling I'll enjoy Picross
3D as long as I'm sufficiently challenged. But this is one of those
new-fangled "Casual games" that seem to be popping up everywhere
nowadays and trying to appeal to everybody, so it may be oversimplified
or very slow to start. Let's find out.

The first third-party Wii game was revealed in the May 2006 issue of
Game Informer. It promised intuitive swordfighting controls and
unmatched precision in gunplay, all in a stylish Yakuza setting. In the
six months between reveal and launch, Red Steel hype built to
unattainable levels. Disappointment was inevitable. But even with
tempered expectations, Red Steel is barely an average game, and the
case for motion controls in action games took a serious blow when it
failed to impress.

That said, the game rode the launch hype into some pretty decent
sales, eventually crossing the million mark. A sequel was rumored
almost as soon as the original appeared on store shelves. It took three
and a half years, but the sequel did eventually arrive in March 2010.
Barring the focus on guns and swords, Red Steel 2 is nothing like the
original: the realistic visuals are switched out for a cel-shaded
style, the Yakuza setting and characters are changed to an
otherworldly-mix of Samurai and Western trappings, and the hopes dashed
by waggle at launch are replaced with renewed fervor for precise motion
controls, which are provided by the Wii Motion Plus controller
attachment that Red Steel 2 requires.

Even if you made the mistake of purchasing Red Steel back in 2006, don't make the mistake of ignoring Red Steel 2 now.